God of Spades
by Senzaemon
Summary: One of the worst thing in his life, Nagisa presumes, is not killing thousands of people at the age of eighteen. It's the fact that he's gotten his sorry ass landed in jail as a freelance assassin at the age of eighteen. One of the more interesting aspects of his life, however, is meeting a slightly psychotic pyromaniac in said jail that called himself "Karma." - Karmagisa. Jail!AU
1. edge

**god of spades;**

* * *

 **edge**

* * *

Nagisa muses that he probably shouldn't be too surprised about waking up in a five by five meter cell everyday by now. He sighs and glances up at the ceiling above him. There's a single light bulb hanging loosely by a string and he starts counting the amount of cracks in the walls and pretends that's the amount of day's he's been locked up.

Because that's the only way he can keep sane in this godforsaken hell hole.

And this is part of his every day morning ritual.

After spending around an hour or three mulling about how long he's been here or how much longer he's going to be here, would hell be similar to all this or maybe if all he's thinking everyday is just a verbatim of all the gone yesterdays and whether there's a possibility of him committing suicide.

Of course, he'll only contemplate about _Nagisa's 101 ways of committing suicide_ when he's tried all the doors, poke at the rusted window locks and lie on the floor, pressing his ear against the water pipes and hoping for a fragment single human soul.

And there are times when he really really craves for human warmth (the guards don't count) he settles with pressing his face against the cold window bars and pretend that he can see the occasional human walking past.

Too bad it's a shame he still hasn't learned to be more realistic after all these months..or years…or decades. Probably around a year or something.

When Nagisa asks the guards for a date, he'll receive a short, clipped reply of something like, "Fifth of June." That's doesn't satisfy him though. He need to know what year is was dammit. On those more unfortunate, more likely outcomes, he'd receive a boot to his stomach and sedatives because "the monster has spoken."

There was this one quote by Nietzsche (Friedrich Nietzsche, you uncultured swines) wasn't there, Nagisa thinks, peeking through his eyelids at the blade of sunlight that cut into his cell.

.

「 He who fights with monsters should be careful, lest he thereby becomes a monster」

.

Or something along those lines. There's hardly a point in over thinking about philosophies when one would be jailed for around the next five years or something, providing that he didn't die from haemorrhage or diarrhea of some sort.

So Nagisa decides to lapse back to being a waste of space and oxygen (of being a freelance assassin who failed at life and got his sorry ass landed in jail.)

Apart from staring at the ceiling all day, there were, of course, other agendas in Nagisa's everyday life, which consisted of pulling the lever of the dumbwaiter everyday at around noon and evening (at least, according to his internal clock and what little he could deduce from the sunlight) and having a quite, undisturbed meal of things that tasted uncannily like cardboard and lint.

And then after dinner, he'd take a shit in the toilet. What a privilege it was, Nagisa bites back his sarcastic remarks during his morning piss, lest the guards thought he was talking to himself and going insane, to not have to piss into a hole.

Although a toilet was technically a hole. Just a more sanitary and eloquent one.

Then there were times like this when he took a longer piss, the guards would bang on his cell door and threaten to sedate him, so taking a shit was usually limited to five minutes or less. Oh the woes.

But to be honest, on a second note, Nagisa could probably get out of his cell quite easily, despite it being mostly underground with the highest security measures and all. And then it'd most likely end up with a fucking massacre on his hands and being hunted again.

Plus, it's not like he's got anything better to do outside the confinement, because the world has probably moved on without him, so he settles with being cooped up here.

* * *

It takes what Nagisa assumes to be around forty six minutes (according to his internal clock), for the lunch to deliver. The light on the dumbwaiter glows and he yanks down the opening for a very badly arranged meal.

A meal of what he assumes to be a piece of beef, chicken, fish, pork, or something not from one of the above glares at him unwelcomingly. There's egg spilling off the plates and some orange juice.

He opens the orange juice and it burns his tongue like acid. It takes his all to not let his grimace show through on his face. This is just reassurance that he is alive and he isn't dead and in hell yet. (Although this was a pretty close intimidation of hell save for the flames)

There's some clanking and dragging of footsteps outside his cell, where Nagisa can't see at all. He's tried staring into the darkness once, trying to make out the blurry silhouettes of whatever demons were lurking outside.

But more realistically speaking, it was probably the guards changing shifts.

His internal clock whispers that it's probably around two-thirty and the guard that always sleeps on duty is coming right now. The snoring never really bothered Nagisa. Instead, it gave him some sort of sick reassurance that he wasn't the only one in this world.

Just as Nagisa expects, the snoring comes not long after the shuffling of feet stop and the creaking of the wooden chair where the guard sit fall silent.

And since everyday is no different than the other, hell, Nagisa could be stuck in a time loop for all he knew, like, remembering that he thought about killing himself yesterday, this morning, and tomorrow.

So he lapses back into the rituals that he's so familiar of.

Five minutes after the guard starts snoring, he'll begin to start talking to Korosen.

Of all the things Nagisa could have chosen for an imaginary friend, he chooses a three meter tall yellow coloured octopus, with the name of Korosen.

Koro (殺)– for kill.

Sen (千)– for thousand.

For the thousands of people he's killed.

When he greets Korosen, he starts off with reciting the names of every single person he's killed in chronological order. Sometimes, he trips over his words and grips his fists tighter when he spits out a more horrifying title, or soften his voice and hold back his tears when some other names jump off the tip of his tongue.

"So, what's up today, Nagisa-kun, Nurufufufu," the familiar mocking green striped smile appears and the looming figure has to crouch to prevent from banging his head against the ceiling.

Nagisa turns in his bed and decides to face the ceiling, staring up at Korosen. "It's pretty pointless if you ask that same question every day. You know that nothing interesting ever goes on in here, Korosen."

"I can read you a story if you want," the octopus offers and it takes Nagisa his all to not roll his eyes at him.

"If you mean reciting the Holy Bible out, then no thanks. I think I've had enough of that story for a life time."

"I can read you something else if you want. Something like, Frantz Fanon's _Wretched of the Earth_?"

Nagisa nods and he tries not to look bored when Korosen picks up the book from his desk.

(Because Korosen was still part of himself and how interesting could it be, telling a story to yourself?)

"So what do you think about Fanon's opinions?" Korosen asks when the sun starts to set and the eventide colours spill in excess into his cell. Nagisa's internal clock mumbles that it's six thirty. The story took four hours off his life.

Nagisa fidgets a bit, running his fingers through the hem of his shirt. "Hmmm, it's okay," he replies, a little half assed, a little feeling of déjà vu building up in the pit his stomach.

It's almost natural, almost unwaveringly flowing, the way Korosen manages to hold a conversation with Nagisa. But it is still, nonetheless, always the same.

By seven, the light on the dumbwaiter glows again and Nagisa knows it's time for another tasteless meal.

"You know, Nagisa-kun, you could always kill yourself by stabbing yourself in the neck with that fork," Korosen speaks up, snatching the fork away from Nagisa, who was in the middle of shoveling some sort of tofu in his mouth.

The tofu splatters everywhere when Korosen waves the fork around.

"No way, that'd be too bloody," Nagisa frowns, picking up a bowl and sipping on the miso soup.

Korosen pauses. "Now when did you start to be afraid of _blood_ , Nagisa- _chan_ ," he counters, peering at the blue haired boy rather incredulously. "You were practically born and raised in it."

Nagisa rolls his eyes. "I'd prefer if I didn't die yet. It's human nature to want to live for a while longer, even just a little while. I can't go against that," he bites out in return and oh, how much that green and yellow striped face irks him.

"How about stabbing yourself in the neck shallowly and waiting until the guards arrive to sedate you? When they arrive, you can just pull out the fork and slaughter everyone and escape," Korosen suggests almost immediately.

"Except they'd probably let me die here or go batshit crazy with their machine guns, so no," Nagisa sighs, finishing the last bite of his rice.

He replaces the tray on the dumbwaiter and only when the thing is locked does he realize that Korosen had cleaned the fork with a piece of tissue and left it on his desk, behind a pile of books. He sighs and smiles.

* * *

When night falls and all Nagisa sees is an abyss stretched around him, he tries to keep himself away by reciting the first two chapters of the Holy Bible. Funny thing is, there were no guards to keep watch at night and it's something he's grateful for.

When he's finished, Korosen will be dosing off in a corner.

"Korosen, wake up," Nagisa whispers into the gloom and it doesn't even take a second for the octopus to zoom over and sit at the edge of his bed.

Korosen cocks his head and looks expectantly at Nagisa. "Korosen, will you please sing me a song? I can't sleep."

It's the same request every single night. Watch the sun set from the room and let the darkness take over. Hear the guards amble away for the night and the silence settles in, creeping from the corner and tiding over the cell.

You know what they say.

Out of sight. Out of mind.

It's not so much that Nagisa was scared of the nightmares or darkness.

It was more of the fact that he was afraid of what was in the darkness, such as things that lurked and skulked in the darkness. Things like –

-Death.

Which made no sense, really, seeing how much he time he channeled into thinking up ways of committing suicide. Damn human instincts.

So Nagisa curls up and he doesn't protest when Korosen's tentacles curl around him, rocking him into sleep with a soft lullaby. It's a comforting warmth around him and this might be all he can afford in here.

* * *

Naturally, it's a surprise to Nagisa the next morning when Korosen is gone and he's lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling again, trying not to instinctively succumb to sleep when someone, horrifyingly, not Korosen or himself, hums the lullaby.

Getting out of bed would have been a good choice to find out just who on earth was going on with that song like a broken recorder. If definitely wasn't a guard, since they all hated him and none of them ever stayed the night.

Nagisa props himself up on the bed with an elbow.

But then again, even if he did find out, it wouldn't make a difference in his life, he rethinks, and flops back down on the mattress. Getting up was too much of a demanding task.

He almost jumps a mile high when there's a knock from the wall next to his bed. Wasn't next door an empty high security cell?

"Oi, are you awake yet," a lazy drawl calls out and Nagisa tries not to ogle too hard at the wall lest the guards come and try to sedate him for being insane….again.

Nagisa throws a glance at the window. It was still four in the morning. The guards wouldn't be arriving until seven. He turns to the wall and nods, until he remembers that the person on the other side couldn't see him. He settles with a quick "yes" and his voice sounds scratchy, like something being dragged across blackboards.

"Have you been here for long?" The other male questions.

"Two years," Nagisa replies, picking at some of the scabbing paint on the wall.

"Ah I see. I'll be here for the next fifteen years or so, for arson. My name's Karma, by the way. I'll be turning nineteen in December."

Nagisa pauses and tries to digest all the information. Nineteen in December, which meant that Karma was a year older than him.

"What your name?" Karma calls, softly rapping against the wall.

Silence settles over them and Nagisa wonders whether he should tell Karma his name, seeing as "Karma" couldn't possibly be a real name.

"My name is Edge," he confirms. The word slip off his tongue like water and Nagisa's always liked that word. It's what his name meant. Edge. He was the edge between life and death. He could reap lives as easy as breathing. All it took was a push to the victim and off the edge of life they went.

"Karma's not your real name is it? I've never came across anyone with such a name before," he cautions and the boy doesn't reply. "That's why I won't tell you my real name either," he continues and he swears that he could hear Karma chuckling from the other side.

"Maybe," Karma replies.

Nagisa can hear the bed creak as Karma shifts and changes position. From what he can hear, the other boy was sitting cross legged on the mattress.

"Well, anyway, it's nice to meet you. I hope we get along, Edge."

* * *

未完待續

* * *

a/n

review and let me know what you thought of it yeah. they motivate me.

constructive criticism is always good

~Ichiro

* * *

yes, i've deleted everything else because everything felt pretty shitty and it just had so much potential that i didn't really explore.

plot might change a bit, characterization should be deeper ect, so please bear with me.

thank you for everyone who has read/favorited/reviewed


	2. bind

**god of spades;**

* * *

 **bind**

* * *

When Nagisa wakes up the second time for the day, the sun is already hanging high, sunlight sneaking in from the slits between the bars of the window and washing off his messy sheets that spill over the floor. His pillow is clamped somewhere at the end of the bed, in between his body and the wall. The lingering warmth of Korosen is still there and the temptation to curl up and close his eyes tugs at him just like how a wave laps at a shore.

Out of the corner of his eye, he catches sight of the dumbwaiter blinking at him and he reaches out for his meal of whatever the fuck it was. He doesn't leave a single scrap of food on the plate; because food was a privilege that he's learn to appreciate. It take a while to pick out the gritty pieces of meat between his teeth and washing it down with something assumes to be tap water.

And still in a sleep induced state, his fingers instinctively gravitate towards the window bars, running his fingers over every single length of metal. The feeling is familiar as always, cold against his skin and there's no hints of them being broken at all. It leaves behind the raw scent of rust on his hands and a slight disappointing taste on the tip of his tongue.

When Nagisa turns back to his meal, the first thing that greets him is a bowl of soup shoved right into his face. The second is Korosen smirking at him "Finish your meal first, Nagisa. I'd look suspicious if you took this long to eat. The guards might suspect something and find the fork," he says and Nagisa stares at him, the words slowly processing in his brain until Korosen pokes him in the face.

"Hey Korosen, Have you ever thought of," he pauses, gesturing at the soup, "though of that, maybe, the soup, like the soup. Bars."

"I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to say, Nagisa-kun."

"The soup. If I poured it on the bars, do you think the salt content would corrode the iron? I know that there's," another pause when Nagisa takes a sip of the soup, "around two hundred milligrams of sodium in here-"

Korosen peers at him incredulously. "Are you telling me you can tell how much salt there is from drinking it?" He interrupts.

"Assassination skills," Nagisa hurriedly explains. "If I do this for around three months in a row, thrice a day, do you think I can then cut the bars with the fork?"

Korosen shrugs casually, "Well, you could try. It's quite pointless asking me when we have the exact same capacity of knowledge and you're just essentially talking to yourself," he says tersely, noticing the way Nagisa seemed to flinch. "And then there's also the issue with ants and cockroaches."

"I'll hose it down at night. It might speed up the process," Nagisa says, emptying the soup on the bars and turning around, heading towards the wire mesh fence of the door for agenda number 2.

"Still not giving up, are you Nagisa?" Korosen questions as he squeezes a tentacle through a hole in the mesh fence and waves it around overdramatically.

Nagisa sends him his deadliest glare, turning back and inspecting the fence.

"Oh by the way, Nagisa, I think the hinge is broken here," Korosen continues, not at all fazed by the blue haired boy's reaction. "See?" he says, latching a tentacle on the hinge and running his tentacle right through it.

It barely takes Nagisa a second to leap over to Korosen and grip the hinge in between his fingers.

"You lied, didn't you," he hisses and Korosen only smiles back at him in that same mask that he paints on every day. Nurufufufufu.

"I'm going to the toilet," Nagisa half snarls and Korosen doesn't say anything, watching with mild curiosity the way the blue haired boy's hand clenches and unclenches.

"Sorry, Nagisa-kun, did I piss you off?" Korosen asks and receives another death glare in return. "I'll read you a book again if you want, "he continues, poking Nagisa in the forehead, the way how Lovro did to him before his fall from grace. Korosen can see the muscles in Nagisa's shoulders relaxing and he grins.

There's a sort of graceful familiarity when Nagisa zombie marches into the toilet, just like every single day. The tiles are a sort of brownish that once may have been a cream colour. He has no idea how they always get so dirty when he hoses everything down at night.

Nagisa signals for Korosen and he slips into the toilet, jabbing his tentacles at the air vent, the exhaust fan and the toilet pipes. (Although Nagisa has no idea how he'd escape through the _toilet pipes_.)

A nagging pit in the bottom of his stomach tells his that his five minutes of time wasting in a vain attempt for freedom is up, so he settles with slinking back onto his bed. Three months from now and he may have a chance depending on if the miso soup plan would work.

He ends up spending the next few hours pouring over the books he's read so many times and re-reading the part of a story where an inmate tries unsuccessfully escape from prison.

* * *

"Edge, are you asleep?" Karma calls out and Nagisa shifts, turning around to face the wall.

"Not yet. It's a bit too early to be sleeping," he replies, running his hand over the cracks of the wall and wondering if Karma's hand would feel as chapped as that. (Years without human interactions did strange things to people.)

Karma mumbles something unintelligible and Nagisa has to strain his ears.

"Did you say something, Karma?" He questions and the name feels a bit strange on his tongue. Foreign, but not unpleasant, he muses.

"I was just asking how you look," Karma says and adds after a thought, "And describe your cell to me."

"Aren't our cells just the same?"

Karma shrugs. "Probably. Except that I've got plaster covering my eyes and I'm practically blind."

"Why?" Nagisa asks and he fidgets uncomfortably when the question elicits an awkward silence. Or rather, what he would interpret as an awkward silence. He shoots Korosen a pleading look and receives a smile in return.

If there's anything that Karma noticed, he sure as hell doesn't notice Nagisa's discomfort. "Sorry Edge," he laughs. "I was just thinking how I should explain this. I've got savant syndrome," he says, tapping against the strip of plaster that runs over his eyes and to the back of his head, the metal wiring digging rather painfully in the his scalp.

"Savant syndrome," Nagisa echoes. "Isn't it part of the autism spectrum of some sort? It ranges from being human calculators to outstanding musical abilities, doesn't it?"

"Yes. I'm a human calendar," Karma explains and Nagisa pretends that he's not curious at the slight waver in his tone. "It's a bit more complex than human calculators. I remember everything I see and hear. And there's also the fact that I can tell the exact time without the help of a clock"

Nagisa doesn't respond and Karma continues.

"It's like, you can hear the clock ticking against you every day and I dare say it's exactly ten twenty-three now."

Korosen leans down and whispers against Nagisa's ear. "Better than you, isn't he. He'd make a good assassin. Maybe recommend him to Lovro?"

Nagisa's curiosity morphs into chagrin and he bats Korosen away. "So Karma, this doesn't really explain why you have to be blindfolded like this."

Karma runs his fingers over the plaster. "It's because once I see something, I remembering every single detail of it and that son of a bitch, you know Asano Gakushuu yeah? The guy who runs this prison, knows that the cells probably aren't perfect and he's afraid I'll break out."

Oh yeah. Gakushuu. Nagisa frowns at the name.

"Oh yeah, it was hilarious, Nagisa, the way you got outwitted by him," Korosen jabbers, rubbing at all his sore spots. "You were running around like a mouse," he giggles, tentacles poking at Nagisa.

"Shut up, Korosen," he sighs, swatting at a tentacle.

"Hey, Edge, are you talking to someone else?" Karma asks and Nagisa winces.

* * *

There are these three guidelines, rules, laws of Shiota Nagisa, or Monkey Rules 1,2,3 as Korosen called it. He'd come up with them the first time he got sedated and drugged. It helped him keep his shit together.

 _One-Look not at what is contrary to propriety (Never look at where Korosen is)_

 _Two - Listen not at what is contrary to propriety (Pretend that you cannot hear he is speaking to you)_

 _Three- Speak not at what is contrary to propriety (Don't converse with him. Don't converse with yourself)_

* * *

"Sorry, Karma, I was just asking how you came to knew Gakushuu," he says, glancing at Korosen.

Nagisa can hear Karma pausing in his cell and wonders, not for the first time, who on earth Karma was. "Oh yeah, I was classmates with Gakushuu," Karma purrs, and his voice is perfect, almost smooth like a flowing river and there's not a single flicker of doubt of is statement in Nagisa's mind. "We never really got along because I kept beating him in all our exams and he hated my guts. Tried to lengthen my sentence here too,' he whines at the end, voice pitching.

And for the first time in how many years it has been, Nagisa can hear himself laughing. He's not quite sure whether he's laughing because he can't imagine Gakushuu being upped by someone else or simply laughing because of the hilarity of it all; laughing at the fact that he was laughing at all.

He can vaguely hear Karma chuckling on the other side too.

"And that's not the worst, you know?" Karma sweeps on, his voice slipping out between his own spasms of laughter. "There was this time in middle school, our third year on a school trip. He pissed his pants in the bus because he couldn't hold it in during the four hour trip. You should have seen the look on his face and everyone could smell the stench!"

Nagisa isn't really sure how long it takes him to stop laughing at the stupidity and normality of it all until he sees Korosen giggling in a corner too.

"But then again," Karma opens his mouth again, his voice much lower and serious that even Korosen stops laughing. Nagisa imagines Karma's smile fading into something softer and less feral. "I've never imagined that things would turn out like this. I didn't think I would get caught and I'd continue working underground until I get old and retire. And then adopt a dog named Fluffy or something and die a glorious death."

.

「 Glory, as anyone knows, is bitter stuff」

.

Nagisa grins at the last sentence and he hears Karma's sharp intake of a breath.

"Isn't that from Mishima?"

Nagisa stand up and walks over to his desk, picking up a book. "Of course," he smiles. "I'm surprised you know of him. I've never considered the possibility of anyone having read Mishima," he chortles.

"Oh Edge," Karma mocks. He can hear the slight exaggerated indentations in Karma's voice, "Edge, how innocent you are. _There's a huge seal called "impossibility" pasted on the world. And don't ever forget that we're the only ones who can tear it off once and for all_ ," he recites and Nagisa can't help but smirk, raising a delicate eyebrow in Karma's direction.

"Says the pervert whose memorized quotes from _The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea_ and probably thoroughly enjoyed it."

"That's quite rich from the pervert who bought up Mishima. But as we all know, he died a glorious death by seppuku."

Nagisa grins and tilts his head in thought, "I wouldn't exactly say that a closeted gay who married a woman and then committed seppuku died a glorious death."

"Then what exactly is glory?" Karma interjects, grinning up at the ceiling. "It could be anything you deem to glorious. Glory, after all, is just a form of beauty. And beauty, as we all know, is in the eye of the beholder."

Nagisa falls silent, waiting for Karma to continue and he does.

"If that's the case, for the scum of society like us, would you say that glory is freedom, the will to do whatever you want, the ability to execute your desires at the cost of humanity? And if that's the case, Edge, haven't we reached the border of glory that humanity can ever reach?"

"If that's the way you want to put it," Nagisa shrugs, looking at Korosen who was, for once in his life, listening attentively to something. "But then again, by reaching the utmost peak of glory through dirtying our hands, doesn't that simply mean that we're at the bottom again? There's no such thing as glory, only desire. You're an arsonist, right, Karma? Why do you gain pleasure in setting people on fire?"

And this time, Karma laughs wholeheartedly, his dry chuckles echoing in the cell.

"Because when you set something on fire, once something burns, they no longer belong in the realm that we're part of. They're burning in hell. Glory, as we just put it, is death itself. It's the act of satisfying my desires. Look Edge," Karma pauses when he hears the other boy stiffen, "I don't get _aroused_ or anything when people burn. Leave that to necrophiles. It's my curiosity that gets all the pleasure.

"In this completely damn godless world, _if_ there was a god, they wouldn't allow people like you and me to survive. There is no heaven, only hell and the void. And we can prove it through our very existence."

"Because we're staying here, aren't we," Nagisa smiles. "So according to your philosophy, does that mean that we are, in essence, the closest to god that a human can come? By throwing away our humanity so we can strip others of their humanity and bring them to salvation through death?"

He fidgets in silent discomfort when he glances at the window and back out where there's a stretch of black. Death was not a topic to be breached right now. Damn him for accidentally bringing it up.

There's a lapse of silence and Nagisa can hear Karma yawning.

"And that," Karma says when half a minute trickles between them, "is exactly correct. Our existence are paradoxes in its own. More to the fact of god."

Nagisa laughs and contemplates what Karma says before nodding, "Mhm,yeah, 'Night, Karma."

He motions for Korosen to come and this time, Korosen doesn't say anything.

Nagisa can hear Karma humming the lullaby through the wall just fine, quite forgetting about his plan to escape, because maybe, as long as he has Karma, there might just be sufficient entertainment for him.

After all, he notes, glancing outside and imagining the world going past and him being somewhere among all those timelines, a lost pinprick that no one remembers-

-Time doesn't wait for anyone.

(And sadly, nor does the glory that comes with Karma and Edge)

.

* * *

.

There are blurry murmurs and the sound of plaster hitting against something when Nagisa stirs in the middle of the night, his eyelids fluttering open and pulled shut again when he curls up in the blankets, sleep tugging him into a black wave.

And out of instinct, without Korosen keeping him warm, he finds his toes curling when the cold seeps in from the window and under his blanket.

(See not. Hear not. Speak not.)

* * *

未完待續

* * *

a/n

oh my god i wanted to discontinue this shit because things are going to get changing soon

and look at how desperate nagisa is lol

reviews are much appreciated so _thank you for everyone who reviewed._

constructive criticism is always good

~Ichiro


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